Goveror-General John McDowell.
The Second Imperial Conference was a meeting of representatives of the various governments of the British Empire held in New York City in 1882. The conference was arranged by Prime Minister Geoffrey Cadogan of Great Britain and Governor-General John McDowell of the Confederation of North America as a follow-up to the First Imperial Conference held the year before in London. The decision to hold the second conference in the C.N.A. was considered a victory for McDowell and a sign of the C.N.A.'s rising prestige.
Prime Minister Geoffrey Cadogan.
Although Sobel does not mention which nations other than Britain and the C.N.A. participated in the conference, it presumably included the British colonies of Australia and New Zealand, and may also have included India, Egypt, and Victoria.
The delegates to the conference agreed to increase the lending power of the Imperial Monetary Fund, which had been established at the First Conference and had the power to make low-interest loans to member governments.
McDowell took advantage of the increased prestige the Second Conference gave him to make his celebrated Age of Renewal speech in New York on 11 October 1882, launching his campaign for the 1883 Grand Council elections.
Even though the C.N.A. later withdrew from direct participation in the process, the imperial conferences laid the cornerstone for the creation of the United British Commonwealth of Nations in 1906.